Garde à Vue is a sound police procedural & Lino Ventura, whether cop or criminal, is always reliable. His Inspecteur Gallien was every bit as good as I'd expected & Michel Serreault was quite adept as the suspect Martinaud too. Romy Schneider as his wife, however, seemed stiff & wooden - tho that could have been intentional.
That said, Gallien was the only one whose behavior seemed at all realistic. All other human interactions - including those of the other cop, Belmont - seem peculiar if not bizarre. Even Martinaud, tho well acted, seems forced & not quite lifelike.
The plot-line leads nowhere & parachuting in the real killer for a surprise ending like that strikes me as cheesy. What kind of moron reports his car stolen, knowing he'd left a murdered child's corpse in his trunk? I can't recall Schneider's reasons for living down the hall from her estranged husband rather than getting a divorce, but her suicide struck me as more bathetic than dramatic.
I know, I know, criminals can be exceedingly stupid, many cases end up being solved by sheer fluke & people do inexplicable things. Gallien aside tho, everything these people do or say strikes me as surreal. Maybe it's supposed to? I dunno. I know this film is considered a classic; I just wish I could say I enjoyed it.
That said, Gallien was the only one whose behavior seemed at all realistic. All other human interactions - including those of the other cop, Belmont - seem peculiar if not bizarre. Even Martinaud, tho well acted, seems forced & not quite lifelike.
The plot-line leads nowhere & parachuting in the real killer for a surprise ending like that strikes me as cheesy. What kind of moron reports his car stolen, knowing he'd left a murdered child's corpse in his trunk? I can't recall Schneider's reasons for living down the hall from her estranged husband rather than getting a divorce, but her suicide struck me as more bathetic than dramatic.
I know, I know, criminals can be exceedingly stupid, many cases end up being solved by sheer fluke & people do inexplicable things. Gallien aside tho, everything these people do or say strikes me as surreal. Maybe it's supposed to? I dunno. I know this film is considered a classic; I just wish I could say I enjoyed it.